North Haledon house fire displaces four

NORTH HALEDON — Four people were displaced by a two-alarm fire that damaged a house on High Mountain Road on Tuesday, a fire official said.

There were no injuries.

The fire in the single-story ranch-style house near the Franklin Lakes border was reported around noon, said Chief A.J. Ricciardi of the North Haledon Fire Department.

“There was a good amount of fire coming out of the bedroom windows on the first floor,” Ricciardi said.

Firefighters initially tried to use a fire hydrant about 1,500 feet away from the burning house, but it didn’t work, Ricciardi said. So they hooked up to a nearby fire hydrant in Franklin Lakes, Ricciardi said.

Neighbors reported a possible missing person in the house, but searches by firefighters did not turn up anyone in the house, Ricciardi said.

“Thank God the searches produced nothing,” Ricciardi said. “The guys did a great job.”

Firefighters from Paterson, Totowa and Woodland Park assisted borough firefighters in bringing the blaze under control within an hour, while Hawthorne and Prospect Park volunteers covered the town, Ricciardi said.

The cause of the fire was still under investigation late Tuesday, Ricciardi said.